


It Isn't Bedtime

by AfricanDaisy, KayleeArafinwiel



Series: The Iathrim Chronicles [2]
Category: Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Discipline, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Spanking of a Child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-08
Updated: 2012-09-08
Packaged: 2017-11-13 19:43:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/507051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AfricanDaisy/pseuds/AfricanDaisy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/KayleeArafinwiel/pseuds/KayleeArafinwiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Little Neldiel tries her father's patience and pushes him too far for the first time. The results are not to her liking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Isn't Bedtime

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of The Greenwood Chronicles, which explores the family history of Thranduil and Legolas. At the moment stories contain only OCs, but canon characters will appear as the series moves on. Please note that this story contains spanking of a child. Neldiel is 11, the human equivalent being 4.

Neldiel was a good girl, or so said her loving father to anyone who would listen. True, she often had a mischievous light in her turquoise eyes, and true, she had enjoyed indulging in tantrums not that long ago when she got a ‘no’ in place of a ‘yes’. But that was nothing more than a stage, Lord Brandir had said, to the disbelief of his elder daughters. They remembered quite well what he had said, or not said, when _they_ had gone through such a _stage_. Clearly their father had a soft spot for Neldiel, no matter that she hadn’t been the longed for son. They didn’t mind too much though, not even Tadiel who was at that prickly point of early adolescence, for they both doted on their baby sister. Still, it was only a matter of time, they knew, just a matter of time before Brandir finally lost his patience.

Now it was early one evening in summer, and Neldiel was sitting on the floor of Brandir’s study, singing as she played with her doll whilst her father worked at his desk. The doll was her very favourite. Her youngest uncle loved to travel to far off places, and the last time he had returned from one of his jaunts, he had brought her this doll with olive coloured skin, and eyes that were ever so dark. Having never before seen skin that was not pale, Neldiel was fascinated. The rest of the family had been more interested to know where Baralin’s travels had taken him; his response to his elder sister Siliveth, and their parents, had been, “You really don’t want to know. No, trust me. You don’t want to know.”

“That is lovely singing, iel-nín,” Brandir said fondly, after a little while, “but now it is time for you and your doll to take yourselves off to bed.” His youngest daughter looked up and smiled at him, and she shook her dark head back and forth. Raising an eyebrow at her, Brandir reiterated firmly, “Bedtime.”

“No.”

“Yes, Neldiel.”

“No, Ada.”

Setting his quill down atop his unfinished work, Brandir swept the elfling and her doll into his arms, and he carried them both from the study. Wordlessly, he took them upstairs to the night nursery, whilst Neldiel wriggled and squirmed as much as the strong arms around her little body allowed. “Ada no,” she repeated. “No bedtime, it isn’t time.”

“It most certainly is. You are going to bed this instant, Neldiel Brandiriel, so not another word out of you,” Brandir replied shortly. As his youngest refused again, he veered away from the bed and went instead to the far wall. “If you insist on being so very naughty, you will stand in the corner.” He set Neldiel down, facing away from him, but she promptly turned back around. “No, little girl. You face the wall.”

“I don’t want to!” Neldiel wailed. She found herself being firmly planted in the corner again, and held in place this time. She resisted, tensing up and wriggling and growling under her breath. The grip did not lessen, and when she realised that Brandir wasn’t going to let go of her, she huffed softly and pouted, but dutifully stood still. This was unfair, she silently confided to her doll. She could have sworn that Akachi, named in the language of the lands she had come from, rolled her eyes in agreement.

“You will go to bed now,” Brandir decreed, after five minutes.

“I’m not sleepy.”

“Nevertheless,” the elf-lord said, carrying his nightgown clad daughter to bed and tucking her in, “you will sleep.”

“I can’t _sleep_ if I’m not sleepy.” Neldiel sighed as her father instructed her to at least try, and she obediently closed her eyes, only to open them a moment later. “I tried.” Unfortunately, Brandir remained unmoved, so the little girl released another sigh, heavier this time, and shut her eyes again. This time, she kept them closed for a very long time. She counted all the way into the hundreds. Surely that was more than enough time for her father to quietly leave the room, so she could get out of bed and keep playing. She was surprised, and more than a little cross, when she opened her eyes to see Brandir _still_ seated next to her bed. “You’re still here.”

“I am,” Brandir agreed.

“Go away,” Neldiel scowled. “Then I sleep.”

“I am staying here until you fall asleep, little girl, so I suggest you get used to the idea. And don’t you look at me that way,” Brandir said, in response to his daughter’s glower. He frowned as she nodded, and he told her severely, “No.”

_“Yes,”_ Neldiel tried to imitate her father’s tone.

It was clearly all a big game to the elfling, but Brandir had finally reached the end of his patience. He plucked her out of bed before she could argue further. “Naughty children who defy their parents again and again have their bottoms smacked, Neldiel,” he told her sternly, turning her over his lap and tucking up the back of her nightgown. “I have had enough of your willfulness and disobedience.”

As a strong hand cracked down on her bared bottom, Neldiel wailed. She would eventually learn that it wasn’t a particularly hard smack, but it was the first she had ever been given, and so it felt worse and sounded sharper than it truly was. “You will not tell me no when I give you instructions,” Brandir scolded her, bringing down a second smack atop the first. “Or say yes, you will, when I tell you _not_ to do something.” He landed a third swat, his hand easily covering his daughter’s bottom, and she sobbed, trying in vain to scramble off his lap even as he easily kept her from moving.

“You will do as you are told, when you are told to do it, or else you will be spanked,” Brandir continued, the fourth smack striking Neldiel’s sit spots. “Do you understand?”

“Ada s-stop!” the little girl cried.

“Are you sorry for being naughty?” Brandir asked, stilling his hand. “Are you going to behave?”

“Sorry…sorry, I’m s-sorry…!”

The elf-lord nodded quietly and picked his youngest daughter up, holding her close against his chest. “I do not wish to have to punish you, Neldiel,” he said, speaking over the sound of her sobs. They were muffled slightly, for her face was hidden in Brandir’s dark blue robes, but she still sounded heartbroken. “However, if your behaviour is naughty, and if you insist on disobeying me, then that is how it has to be. Now, it is done and you are forgiven, and it is time for you to go to bed. I will stay until you are asleep.”

“Sorry,” Neldiel repeated in a meek whisper.

“I know you are,” Brandir replied, gentling his tone. “No more sorries now. It’s all over with.”

Exhausted from her struggles and tears, Neldiel soon drifted off to sleep in her father’s arms with one of his silver braids clutched in her fist. He carefully removed his hair from her grip once he was sure he could do so without waking her, and he settled her into bed with her doll tucked under her arm. Already, time that could have been spent on his work for the King had been taken up by his willful daughter, and really, he knew that noble protocol would expect him to have returned to his study as soon as Neldiel had become compliant and uttered her first ‘sorry’. But even so, Brandir sat on the edge of the bed, and he watched his child as she slept.

The work could wait.


End file.
